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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Finally getting around to posting about my game! 2k Eldar vs Eldar

I was already planning to visit friends in Tokyo about a month back, but out of nowhere I got a free day off on a Friday and I got some 40k in too. What a lucky break! Scott and I are slugged it out with the most brutal lists we could put together at 2000 points. I laid down my ForgeDar Council to see how it would fare against him without allies. Here's my list.

HQ

Farseer - Jetbike, Spear

Farseer - Jetbike

8 Warlocks - Jetbikes, 1 Spear

Troops

5 Dire Avengers

Wave Serpent - TL Scatter Laser, Underslung Shuriken Cannon

5 Dire Avengers

Wave Serpent - TL Scatter Laser, Underslung Shuriken Cannon

Fast Attack

Nightwing Interceptor

2 Hornets - Dual Pulse Lasers, One with Holos

2 Hornets - Dual Pulse Lasers, One with Holos

Heavy Support

Pheonix Bomber

2 War Walkers - Scatter Laser/Bright Lance

War Walker - Scatter Laser/Bright Lance

2000 Total Points, 13 Kill Points, 2 Scoring Units

Not having Dark Eldar presents some of the old challenge in using the Seer Council (no Hit and Run). And it makes my powers less reliable (no Grisly Trophies). Part of what we were trying to do was test ways of bringing down the Council when it is backed by a powerful list, but not by the Baron.

Opposing Eldar:

HQ

Spiritseer

3 Warlocks on Jetbikes, 2 Spears

Troops

5 Wraithguard with D-Scythes

Wave Serpent - Scatter Laser, Holofields

5 Wraithguard with D-Scythes

Wave Serpent - Scatter Laser, Holofields

3 Jetbikes with a Shuriken Cannon

3 Jetbikes with a Shuriken Cannon

3 Jetbikes with a Shuriken Cannon

Fast Attack

2 Hornets - Dual Pulse Lasers

Nightwing Interceptor

Heavy Support

Falcon - Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Holofields

Warp Hunter - Holofields

Warp Hunter - Holofields

Basically our idea was to force the Council to roll a lot of 4++ saves against the Wraithguard and Warp Hunter templates. There is also a good amount of firepower coming in from other platforms on the other side. If the Council were dwindled down, my relatively low AV force might be dealt with over the course of the game.

Deployment.

I failed to roll either Fortune or Protect. And getting too focused on trying to Fortune I forgot to roll for Prescience and Psychic Shriek. I was off to a bad start. Then I lost the roll for first turn and failed to seize. This was basically the worst case scenario for the army I brought.

Scott's Saim Hann force. A work in progress, and I think his best painting to date.

But what we found was that while my opponent made a few mistakes in his movement phase, particularly putting long ranged assets too close (he's used to Dark Eldar skimmers with rifles firing from the inside) and his D-Scythe Wraithguard too far, it wasn't of great consequence that I lost a lot of my Council. What I had been wary of was him hammering even 2-3 models with 5 templates with both units. That could cripple the Council without even accounting for firepower coming from his vehicles. Instead the Wraithguard were too far away to lean on their optimal target and he had to fire on the Council with his Hornets and tanks. That spared my own vehicles a lot of damage. His battle tanks were also too close to avoid getting assaulted by the few Witchblades that remained, meaning that despite hurting the unit badly they were still causing roughly the same damage they would have at full strength.

Council casualties and their following assaults. Scott's Hornets really pounded them. We found Hornets to be obscenely powerful in this game, especially when Guided.

I discovered a few things about my list in this game. The Council is as amazing as always at killing vehicles with weak rear armor. While I think it would have been too diminished to fight large units of infantry or other tarpit units, I think it is likely armies with points invested in those units would have a hard time hammering the Council at long range. A list like that may not be able to deal with my Serpents, Hornets, Walkers and Flyers as well. It might also not have the ability to ignore cover which is huge in dealing effectively with a Fortuned 2+ Council, which before the game started was a very real concern.

Fielding a Council in my ForgeWorld mech list basically throws a wrench into target priority for my opponent. It takes very specific tools to bring it down. Even if it doesn't have a 2+ and 2+ cover, and even if it doesn't have Fortune, at long range you need to use weapons with AP 2/3 to kill them effectively and that keeps my mech elements mostly unmolested. Ignoring the Council, especially when there is a nice opportunity when they don't have Fortune up, can spell doom for many armies as well.

I also discovered that Pheonix Bombers are much better than the internet seems to believe. I've seen any number of times that people advise taking Nightwings instead for better jink saves, similar firepower and cheaper costs. But similar firepower is so untrue in my opinion. With the missile launchers you get a lot more shots at very good AP. I found my Bomber could basically remove a unit of Wraithguard every turn. And I'd be comfortable shooting it at almost anything: vehicles, weakly armored troops, other planes, really anything but AV14.

Before flyers.

After flyers. Cleared a Serpent and WG unit.

And finally what I learned is that even though I love the Council I built and using its rules is really ridiculously fun, I can't see what place it has in 40k generally. Most armies can't deal with it, especially not when it is backed up by a powerful force. I already felt like it clearly doesn't belong in casual games, but even when you tailor specifically to it and field a quite brutal army it throws off the balance of the game too much in my opinion. It takes a lot of force to destroy even when it doesn't have any of the powers that make it durable. And it takes very specific equipment even if you apply the force. You really need both AP2 and ignores cover and there aren't many armies that can wing that. Even if they can, I don't like it when a battle can be compared so easily to paper, rock, scissors. It's a strategy game, after all, and strategy ought to win the day.

I think I'm done using my Council, and likely my Forge World units, in all but Apoc battles. Fun as they are there just aren't many situations where they are fair. For most of 5th edition I played feeling like within reason (ie as long as you're not facing utterly ridiculous lists from the few top tier books at the time), superior strategy would win out. But the game is clearly not balanced for competitive list-building under 6th when there are units that deal a lot of damage and are essentially unkillable to a lot of armies. I suppose that's just something I have to learn to accept. Hopefully it draws me back toward aspect warriors because then I wouldn't need to paint or build anything to keep my lists up-to-date.

This post is a rather long copy/paste from the 2d6D Facebook page comments. Thanks to Jeremy, Scott and Justin for the engaging and t...

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